


The 31st at 221B

by tacotheshark



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-09
Updated: 2012-01-09
Packaged: 2017-10-29 06:07:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/316607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tacotheshark/pseuds/tacotheshark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John wants Sherlock to celebrate Halloween.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The 31st at 221B

**Author's Note:**

> A Halloween fic posted a bit late here, my apologies.
> 
> Winner of the Halloween 2011 contest over at [#Fanfiction-Emporium](http://http://fanfiction-emporium.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http//deviantart.com).

Out comes the knife, slipping back easily through the skin it slices like butter, sheathed in the ruby red of a dying man's blood and glinting against too-bright white fluorescent lights. Blood slips down the blade, collecting at the sharp, silver edge and dripping onto the white tile floor in glossy rivulets that splat into shiny puddles. The killer wipes the knife harshly on the white shirt of the now dead man, leaving a darkening smear of red. He stalks off then, with his almost-clean knife and a smug expression on his face- an ugly face, the face of a murderer.

But Sherlock can see none of this in the grainy, mute security video- only a dead man and a red knife, the killer nothing but a shape of black clothing, the hood of his sweatshirt effectively hiding his face from any possibly witnesses (of which there were none), and any security cameras the killer mustn't have known of. He's a stupid killer, Sherlock presumes, or maybe the likes of Sherlock have never crossed his path. Clearly not, for the man kills with a practiced precision, a practiced knowledge of where to strike, and an ease of which can only be acquired by the knowledge of being unknown, undetectable. But not undetectable, not in the least, because of the man- the perceptive, prying genius- who plays the 30 second clip over and over, picking at and discerning every detail that he notices, which is always, inevitably, every single one.

Sherlock has only this tape with which to find the murderer, as the police won't allow him to visit the crime scene this time, not yet. So, he makes due, squinting and absorbing the video as he sits on the living room sofa with his log, wiry legs stretched out and crossed, resting on the coffee table placed in front of him. He tries to gather as many clues as possible, at which he succeeds because he simply never doesn't, despite the frustratingly low quality. Of course it's frustrating, it's remarkably, mind-blowingly frustrating, but it's a challenge as well, which Sherlock can most definitely always appreciate.

In that big reclining chair is John, the interested army doctor, watching intently the man who will never cease to both fascinate and amaze him, He watched with wonder, because _oh,_ it's so wonderful, when Sherlock rattles off comment after little comment, like,

"The way he stabs, it's his first time stabbing a person." John can't quite relate, as he hasn't seen many stabbings, but he believes he has a small idea of what Sherlock means. "Not his first murder, though. Not his first time handling a knife either." This, John understands. The way the killer goes at the victim- it's easy for him, clearly. And the way he handles that knife, with his burly fingers wrapped tightly around the handle, makes it clear he knows how it works, he knows how it slices. "So he works with knifes. A chef, maybe." Yes, John agrees, definitely. "No, definitely a butcher with the way he holds it." And John sees now, it's obvious. "But why is he using a knife? Why not his usual weapon?" A rhetorical question, asked only to Sherlock's own self. "Ah, yes, he clearly doesn't mind gore; his weapon of choice is a gun. Probably had it revoked for some reason and didn't want to take the risk of stealing it back."

And finally, after replaying the clip a single last time, "Well, there we have it, a butcher who's had his gun revoked. Can't be many of those in London, can there?"

No, there isn't, and after a quick call to Lestrade, the murderer seems to have been found. And not even the better part of the night has passed.

"Sherlock," begins John when Sherlock's cell phone has been hung up with a faint beep and placed onto the coffee table. "You never dressed up for Halloween as a kid, did you?"

"Ugh, never," Sherlock mutters, shaking his head and sighing. "Not when I developed a mind of my own and stopped my mum from dressing me in those ridiculous costumes. Where ever did that question possibly come from?"

"Sherlock, tomorrow's Halloween," John says, perplexed. "You didn't know that?"

A sigh, simply, is elicited from Sherlock, and a frustrated sigh at that. "You know I don't often keep the date, why would you ever think that I keep up with holidays? Apart from Christmas- family dinners and all that. Wastes of time."

"Very well then," John surrenders with a shrug. "I suppose you don't give candy out to the kids either, then?"

"Oh certainly not," is Sherlock's reply, and as John isn't quite surprised by Sherlock's lack of concern over the holiday, he is just a bit shaken by Sherlock's complete ignoring of it and his disgust at it, even, but only because Sherlock deadpans his words like Halloween isn't commonly known of or commonly celebrated. But this is Sherlock, he must remember, and Sherlock never cares about much. "Oh please, John, I'm not going to spend my own money to feed junk to other's people's children."

"That's not the point, Sherlock. It's the spirit of the holiday. But of course you don't care about the spirit."

"John, the spirit of Halloween is absolutely horrid. It begun as a Celtic festival, with people wearing masks to keep ghosts from finding and killing them."

"Again, not the point. Do you watch horror movies at least?" But John knows the answer before the words leave his mouth.

"They're boring. They always leave out the details because no one seems to notice them."

John isn't completely disappointed. Just a bit, but no, not really, because from Sherlock he wouldn't dare to expect anything different. John, though, will make a point to celebrate Halloween to the best of his ability, and he doesn't plan to give Sherlock the simply choice but to do the same.

When Sherlock is woken the following morning, it isn't by streams of sunlight the filter into his bedroom through the blinds or by the shrill beeps of his alarm clock like any other day, but by shouts of his name, orders to get up, and several kicks to the frame of his bed.

"Ugh, I'm _awake_!" Sherlock growls, grabbing the pillow from under his head and throwing it over his face to separate him from the man who stands before him. "What are you _doing,_ John?"

"What I'm _doing,_ " John says, with an unfitting mischievous grin, taking the pillow from Sherlock and tossing it to the other side of the bed, "is taking you to shop for candy and horror movies/ Now get up."

"And why are you doing that?" Sherlock groans, and he doesn't move an inch from his place sprawled out and tangled in the sheets.

"Sherlock, we're going to have a proper Halloween. You don't have a say. So let's go."

John is persistent, and Sherlock decides to doesn't have the energy to keep up the objections much longer, so he swings his legs over the side of the bed and stalks his way to the shower, all while glaring at John. He isn't angry- can't possibly be, at John at least- but irritated and not quite sure why John would possibly bother.

Outside before the better part of an hour, the two set foot on the sidewalk and head down the sidewalk to the nearest supermarket, John in a cotton jumper and Sherlock clad is black, with the bright glint of the sun casting an almost blonde color to his dark curls.

Sherlock can't stand children. He absolutely can't stand them. To be surrounded by them from every side, running, screaming, crying for their parents, and begging for more candy than they can possibly devour, isn't quite pleasant to say the least, and it isn't long before Sherlock is crawling out of his skin, about to drive himself up the walls. They just keep screeching, hitting wach other, bumping into Sherlock- Sherlock wonders in he, himself, was ever like that, a brainless little barbarian, filled with absolute disdain and carelessness for anything but himself, and he comes to the conclusion that there is no possible way.

" _This_ is why I avoid supermarkets at all costs," Sherlock mutters to John, who seems to be taking no notice at all of the little idiots as he tosses over-sized bags of treats into the shopping cart he's picked up. "Now you're just luring the horrid little beasts to our flat."

"Oh would you stop? They're just children." John sighs, but he grins all the same, and Sherlock could have hopped up with joy when John began to wheel the cart away from the candy and the children and toward the registers, the cart's wheels clanging against the floor.

Soon they're outside again, into the cool breeze of October, and heading just down the road to a video shop, to which John leads the way. Sherlock only stands behind John as John's eyes rake through the rows of DVD cases arranged on a rack under a giant cardboard sign that reads _'HORROR'_ , a vivid mash of colors, of which red, unsurprisingly, is a main component. "I don't suppose you have a preference when it comes to movies?" asks John.

"No," Sherlock says, though he begins to wander around the shelves, wondering if there may, at all, be something to interest him. He doesn't find a single thing, not surprisingly.

John shakes Sherlock from his thoughts with a muttering of "Sherlock," and the presentation of one of the many plastic-wrapped cases. "This alright?" he asks, and Sherlock doesn't bother to look at the name because he nods. "Alright," John says again, before the movie is paid for and the pair is leaving the small shop.

It's a nice day- a sunny day- which usually translates to a boring day where Sherlock is concerned. But this is not a boring day; it's so impossibly far from a boring day. Especially during John and Sherlock's walk home, does the interesting part of the day truly begin.

There's the unmistakable sound of gunshots- several gunshots- loud and harsh against the ears of the abundant number of people who roam the streets without the thought of even the possibility of such a sound being heard in their everyday lives. There's a scream for barely a second before it dies down into a choke, and John cringes, but whips his head around nonetheless to face the cause of these ghastly noises. Sherlock spins around as well, and they're both met with the rather harrowing sight of a woman lying dead on the sidewalk, limbs splayed every which way and several bullet holes in her chest and shoulders. A chunk of a shoulder is missing, the gaping hole leaking blood, red liquid trickling into the spaces between the grey cement blocks that may now be permanently stained red.

Everyone's begun to scream and run, apart from the consulting detective and the doctor. But there are no more shots, no more bullets. It was that one woman who was shot, only that one woman, and now Sherlock is tripping over his feet and running toward that woman like a madman. John calls out after Sherlock with a question of why he doesn't let the police just handle this one, but Sherlock only calls John over, and John supposes he doesn't have much of a choice but to pace his way over to the murder scene, grocery bags still in hand.

"John, you're a doctor," Sherlock says, on his knees next to the body and much too preoccupied with it to look directly at John. "I need you're help."

"Bit late for that, don't you think?"

Sherlock sighs. "Can you tell from which direction the bullets came from?"

"I could try," John says as he shrugs and crouches next to the body as well. After a moment of studying and trying hard to keep his fingertips from brushing against the bloody holes, he says, "Around there, I'd say." He points behind him to a very close by office building. "Can't say which floor."

"Well," Sherlock breathes with a rather mischievous grin that John, frankly, isn't quite surprised at, "Looks like this Halloween could be a bit fun after all."

"No one but you would have a smile when a woman's just been shot dead on the street."

"Well there isn't a thing wrong with being interested." Only sometimes can John beg to differ, and this is definitely one of those times.

Five minutes, and the police have arrived, having been called by at least a dozen bystanders, of which Sherlock and John were not. Sherlock argues with them and John stands idly by, and soon he's begun to absently eat the candy.

"Do you honestly believe with an ounce of your mind that you'd be better off interviewing me as a witness than letting me just find the murderer myself?" It comes out of Sherlock as a hiss, nearly a shout, and that's the moment when it's agreed that Sherlock take the case.

Out of all the ways John had expected to spend his Halloween, and though he had been so tremendously mistaken, this was certainly not at all one of those ways.

The office building is absolutely teeming with people, and it's absolutely impossible to easily find the sniper in the seas of many, or so John as well as the police had though. But nothing is ever what is expected when it comes to Sherlock, and neither John nor the police question Sherlock in the slightest.

Just a few hours and Sherlock's found the shooter, after cramming and locking the whole of the building into several separate meeting rooms and strutting around while talking about the murderer and studying the expressions and movements of the building full of possible suspects.

And the killer was thrown into prison immediately, having admitted to the murder, said killer being a woman, angry at her boss and apparently having the mindset that the best way to express this was to murder said boss. She was a bit insane- very, actually- with shooting training as well, which was always quite the interesting combination.

" _Boooooring,_ " Sherlock drawls as they step back into 221B Baker Street. Yes, just a bit, John decides, as opposed to their usual genius of a murderer, but certainly not compared to a normal day for anyone who isn't Sherlock, but yes, boring by Sherlock's standards, definitely. "So, how about that movie?"

And John is just completely dumbstruck. "You want to sit down and watch a movie after _that?_ "

But Sherlock only shrugs and smirks. "I'm in a good mood, take advantage."

And John has to admit, watching a horror movie with Sherlock's commentary may just be one of the most amusing things he's ever done.


End file.
